Shabbat Services: Lou Wiener Memorial Lecture

When

March 08, 2013

8:00 PM

Location

Shir Tikvah

Lou Wiener Memorial Lecture
Rabbis Arthur Waskow & Phyllis Berman

The Bloody Doorway & Rebirth into Freedom: First Steps on the Path to Pesach

Since writing the original Freedom Seder in 1969, Rabbi Arthur O. Waskow has been one of the creators and leaders of Jewish renewal and of several important interfaith projects addressing issues of peace, justice, and healing of the earth. He founded The Shalom Center in 1983 and has been its director since then. Its work has focused on healing the relationships between adamah (earth) and adam (human earthlings), deeply troubled as they are today by global scorching and the mass extinction of species.

Rabbi Waskow’s book, Seasons of Our Joy, a classic guide to the history, practice, and spiritual meaning of the festival cycle, has just been republished with a new chapter on recent creativity in celebrating the festivals.

Rabbi Phyllis O. Berman, his wife, founded (1979) and has since been Director of the Riverside Language Program--a unique and renowned intensive school located in New York City, for teaching English language and American culture to newly arrived adult immigrants and refugees from all around the world. From 1994 to 2005, Rabbi Berman was Director of the Summer Program of the Elat Chayyim Center for Healing and Renewal.

Rabbis Waskow and Berman have brought new spiritual depth to celebration of the Jewish life-spiral as co-authors of A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven and a new depth of understanding of the Exodus in their book, Freedom Journeys: Tales of Exodus & Wilderness Across Millennia.

Rabbis Berman and Waskow brought into being The Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah, and initiated the effort at multireligious observance of the confluence of sacred seasons in the fall of 2005, 2006, and 2007. With Sister Joan Chittister and Saadi Shakur Chishti, they co-authored, The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims (Beacon Press, 2006).